Magers' filly Third Chance has real chance in Lassie Stakes

News anchor upbeat about his thoroughbred holdings

September 09, 2010|By Neil Milbert, Special to the Tribune

Ron Magers has a chance to become a thoroughbred racing newsmaker Saturday at Arlington Park.

Third Chance, a filly the Ch. 7 news anchor bred and co-owns with Bob Marcocchio, will make the second start of her career when she attempts to outrun 12 opponents in the Arlington-Washington Lassie Stakes, the meeting's top race for 2-year-old fillies.

The Futurity is the second of two prestigious Grade III $100,000 races for 2-year-olds on the card. The other, the Arlington-Washington Futurity, has seven colts and a gelding in the field.

Both have been productive Breeders' Cup preps in recent years. Street Sense, the third place finisher in the 2006 Futurity, went on to take that year's Breeders' Cup Juvenile — and the 2007 Kentucky Derby — and last year's Lassie winner, She Be Wild, was victorious in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies.

Third Chance is trained by Jimmy DeVito, who also has Tellme All Aboutit and One Star in the crowded Lassie field. An Illinois-bred with an intriguing family history, she made an auspicious career debut on Aug. 6 at Arlington when she was a frontrunning 6-length winner of a 5-furlong maiden race.

"I know she's quick," said Magers. "I just don't know if she can go a mile in her second start."

Third Chance is a well-bred daughter of the broodmare Temporada and the maternal granddaughter of Lehmi Go, the mare who won the Grade III Arlington Matron for Magers in 1992, a few years after he became a thoroughbred owner.

"Temporada had some ability but couldn't overcome her physical problems," said Marcocchio, Magers' long-time associate in racing ventures.

Wanting to maintain the Lehmi Go female line connection, Magers decided to keep Temporada as a broodmare and race her most promising foals. But the first two were overtaken by tragedy. The colt Stormy Afternoon died of a heart attack at age 3 in 2005 while training and the 3-year-old filly Azevedo perished in a 2006 barn fire at a farm in Kentucky where she was recuperating from minor knee surgery.

Thinking that Azevedo would continue the Lehmi Go family line as a broodmare after finishing her racing career, Magers had sold Temporada. The death of Azevedo left him devastated.

"At that point, after the heartbreak we had with Stormy Afternoon and Azevedo, I was thinking about hanging it up (as a thoroughbred owner)," he remembered. "I wonder if people realize how much all of us get attached to these horses."

Nevertheless, Magers and Marcocchio decided to check out the catalog for the 2006 Keeneland fall sale of breeding stock and, lo and behold, there was Temporada in foal to the sire Kafwain.

"By accident we spotted her," Marcocchio said. "We used the insurance settlement to buy her for $18,000 and brought her to southern Illinois to foal. We named the foal Third Chance because (after the demise of half-brother Stormy Afternoon and half-sister Azevedo), she was our third chance with Temporada."

In addition to Third Chance, Magers has two other racehorses.

"I also own all or part of five broodmares," he added. "I think we have six weanlings and yearlings, including a yearling half-brother and a weanling half-sister to Third Chance."